Oct. 23-29
Last week, with more than 100 days elapsed since the NIL era kicked off July 1, we dug in on some of the big-name players who made the biggest initial splash by signing exclusive partnerships with major agencies, landing big endorsement deals or even developing their own vehicles for producing NIL cash. While the results weren’t pretty for the players (primarily quarterbacks) we featured, we felt there was more to say.
As a result, today, at the 120-day mark, we decided to dig a little deeper on the topic. We wanted to get perspectives from the scouts who are evaluating the players; the college recruiting and personnel professionals who are “on the ground” with them; and the people measuring their social media influence to get a better read on how NIL is impacting the players, their teammates, and the game itself. Whether or not our sources were reluctant to express negative reviews toward a change that has been widely praised in the media, we found them surprisingly positive about the first four months under the new rules.
We expected team evaluators to be questioning, even skeptical, of NIL positives. When we asked them, a week after the new rules passed, several scouts expressed concerns about NIL, but also relished the insights it would provide on a player’s character. Today, the scouts we spoke to said that, while the NIL picture is still developing, they’ve seen minimal impact.
- “Just feels like business as usual. The only time it really comes up is if there is something super noteworthy, but it hasn’t seemed like much of a distraction for the most part.”
- “Mixed bag of opinions, attitudes about it taking away from players play, work. It does reveal some things about players’ interests, maturity, focus, etc. Some players are sharing benefits with teammates, which is great.”
-
“Hasn’t been anything crazy. (UNC officials) talked about (QB Sam Howell) doing things with his NIL to help teammates out, etc., but nothing much besides that.”
- “I felt it’s more business as usual. Not as big a deal as I might have thought.”
- “The good players are not doing it during the season because they don’t want it to be a distraction and affect their and the team’s performance. QBs (have been using) it to feed the OL!”
We also reached out to friends from schools with several major players on our NIL Grid. Sources from inside college recruiting and personnel departments there echoed the same themes.
- “I don’t hear about it in day-to-day meetings. You see posts on Twitter and ads more than I ever hear . . . them talk about it.”
- “Obviously, the majority of the opportunities have been given to the top 10% of our team . . . to be honest it really has not been a distraction at all for us. That’s the most surprising thing to me.”
- “A lot of our student athletes have utilized this for not just themselves but will use free products for their teammates, which has been a positive. It has been almost a non-factor in recruiting as well. Like, we try to address it, but kids don’t actually care.”
- “We have a walk-on RB who has a big social media following that has had some success with all of this, but he’s the same person as before it all started.”
At the same time, some cautioned that it’s still early and the potential for abuse could be down the road. “We’ve honestly been prepared for this for quite some time. It’s definitely been a factor, (but) I wouldn’t say it has been a distraction yet,” said one recruiting director. “If guardrails don’t go up, it’s going to be a massive advantage for schools with big booster backing.”
For the most part, the response from school officials and scouts has been similar to what we heard from agents this summer, who are on the front lines of this and possibly more likely to hear candor from parents and players. The themes seem to be, for the most part, curiosity and caution, perhaps because attitudes in athletics tend to be more conservative. Also, obviously, these responses are anecdotal and far from scientific. Still, they give a quick snapshot of where we stand early in these new times, and we’ll continue to keep an eye on things. Hopefully, the tone remains positive.
Regarding the players we referenced last week, though the on-field results haven’t all been positive, there’s good news. The old adage, “all publicity is good publicity” seems to be true, at least according to Buzz U, a service that measures a player’s composite impact in his local community based on social media activity and on-field performance. Here’s where their Buzz U scores stand within their college communities (as of Oct. 24); perfect score is 100:
-
Spencer Rattler, QB, Oklahoma: 98.95
-
Sam Howell, QB, North Carolina: 99.88
-
D’Eriq King, QB, Miami (FL): 68.29
-
McKenzie Milton, QB, Florida State: 51.38
-
Graham Mertz, QB, Wisconsin: 77.37
-
Kedon Slovis, QB, USC: 77.96
-
D.J. Uiagalelei, QB, Clemson: 99.93
-
Myles Brennan, QB, LSU: Didn’t register Buzz Score (hasn’t played)
NIL is a layered topic that demands more than two Friday Wraps to explore, and we’ll continue to revisit it as we go forward. For now, however, here’s a look at what else we saw, heard, read and said in the business of college and pro football this week.
Wait, one more thing: In August, we hosted Trevor Swenson of Dynamic Talent to talk about how to make money with NIL. Here are a few highlights, but he has much more to say from his years promoting athletes and entertainers and helping them turn their respective media presences into dollars. Whether you are an established agent, a new agent, an aspiring agent who will take another crack at the exam next summer, or even a parent, you probably have questions about how to optimize NIL opportunities. Well, we’re bringing Trevor back to answer just those questions. How should you decide who to sign? How do you approach potential clients and convert them into actual clients? What can your client expect to make? How do you approach vendors and pitch them on your clients’ services? What does your client need to know and do to maximize his earnings? We’ll cover all of this in our three-session Zoom workshop that kicks off Wednesday (Nov. 3) and continues the following two Wednesdays (Nov. 10 and 17). We see this as a real opportunity with so many people – including the players our sources spoke of above – interested in what NIL can provide, but confused about how to go about hunting down these newly available resources. Cost is $150 plus tax, and we’ll only take 50 participants. We’re also working on a special guest for Week 3 of our workshop. For about the amount of money you’ll spend cruising Amazon or Etsy this weekend, you can unlock the potential to bring in new revenues in a marketplace brimming with potential. We hope you can join us. Got questions? Hit us up.
Catching Up: Mike Ackerley, 74, scouted for 22 years in the NFL with the Buccaneers, Rams, Titans and Texans, in addition to working for the Los Angeles Express of the USFL. We caught up with him this week.
-
Where are you living and what are you doing now?: I’m in Phoenix, and I’m fully retired. Since I’ve been retired, I’ve done a little volunteer coaching at the high school level in the Phoenix area. My oldest son is the head freshman coach at Corona Del Sol High School, and I’ve been helping him a little bit on the field, but the last few years doing film breakdown for him. Out here, most of the coaches, at least on the lower level, are volunteers. He started volunteering about five years ago at Corona, and he has a son who’s a sophomore this year, so I volunteered one year on the field, and then lately been doing film breakdowns. I volunteered at Mesa High School one year, and other than that, I just watch a lot of the grandkids play ball. My kids all live here, and my wife is from here, so that’s kinda how I ended up here. I’m actually from California originally, and then my next to last coaching job was at Arizona State, and I was at ASU with Larry Marmie for four years.
-
Do you miss the job? What do you miss most?: “I enjoyed scouting. It was fun. Having coached in college for 25 years, you travel around, and you . . . (get) to go watch them practice. (You’re) being around those coaches that you didn’t have a chance to, because you don’t do that. Colleges aren’t receptive to a guy from another college coming around. I think, yeah, I do miss it. Every year, it gets less and less, that you’re retired and away from it. The thing I miss the most, when I transitioned from coaching to scouting, the thing I missed was the daily interaction with coaches and the game plans and the recruiting of the players was always interesting and a little different. The thing I miss most is the relationships with the other scouts, and getting to know the people on the other teams. Those kinds of relationships are the things I miss the most. The evaluation is part of the job, and that was always interesting, and it was fun from year to year to see the different types of players and evaluate them, but I would say just the relationships with the people in the league. There’s a few guys I still talk to all the time, and those are the things I miss.”
-
Do you keep in touch with any of your former colleagues?: “Over time, lately, seems like some of the guys I used to talk to have passed away. Mel Foels and I communicate on a regular basis; he was at the Rams and I coached with him at Arizona State, and I talk to him at least once a month. Ed Lambert I talk to quite a bit. Ed and I coached together with the L.A. Express. I talk to Ed every 3-4 weeks, about once a month I’ll talk to Ed, and those are the two guys. And (former Rams GM) Charley Armey, I stay in touch with him. (Longtime NFL scout) Dave Boller and I were together at ASU, and I helped Dave get into scouting at Tampa. I went to a high school game last week with Dave, and I talk to him quite a bit. Those are the main guys that I talk to. I’ve also heard from (former Texans scout) Pete Russell a couple of times. But those are some of the guys I stay in touch with.”
-
Do you go to any live games (HS/college/pro)?: “Well, now I’ve got four grandkids that are playing football, and I spend a lot of time going to high school games here in the valley. I have two at different high schools, and I have two that are playing youth football. They’re 12 years old, and they’re on different teams, so I spend Saturdays watching them play, and I go over and watch ASU practice and haven’t been to a game this year, but I follow them pretty closely. My wife graduated from U of (Arizona), so I follow them, but I’ll go over and watch ASU practice sometimes. I know (head coach) Herm (Edwards) from when he was coaching at the Rams, and since Herm’s been over at ASU, I’ve gone over there several time to spend time with Herm, and he’s hired some of the guys I’ve known from the league. And then I follow my Colorado State Rams. I played at Colorado State and then coached there, so I’ll go back every year for a reunion and go to a game. It’s kinda fun to go back and reunite with some of the guys that I coached. I went to school there, so I’d like to see them do well, but it’s always fun to go back, and they have a new stadium and a lot of new facilities.”
-
Are there any players you love to watch and/or feel close to due to your work in the game?: “Well, you know, when I was at Houston, we drafted J.J. Watt, and I didn’t personally scout him, but everybody watches everybody. Now he’s with the Cardinals, so I always enjoyed watching him play. He’s a guy you want on your team. He’s an effort guy going 100 miles per hour and a good leader, so it’s kinda fun to have him with the Cardinals. They get a lot of coverage here, so you get to see a lot of him. He’s one of those players that’s fun to watch. I just enjoy honestly the college game a lot more than the pro game. I think the pro game is OK, but I enjoy the college game a little more. I like the pageantry and the enthusiasm and some of that kind of stuff in the college game. The pro game is more business-like and more concerned about their brand and that sort of thing, though I think the college game, with NIL, that’s going to change.”
Review the latest from other former NFL scouts and executives by accessing our Catching Up archive here. Want to hear from a former scout, or know someone who may be interested in being interviewed? Let us know.
Sleeper alert: This week, Senior Bowl Executive Director Jim Nagy lamented many small schools’ reluctance to upload their film to the NFL dub center, pointing out that this significantly reduces small-school players’ chances to be identified as NFL prospects. That means it could be harder than ever for players from out-of-the-way places to get so much as a UDFA invite. Well, we’re here to help. Former Titans executive Blake Beddingfield has been doing nothing but watching tape for the last two months, and he’s seen plenty of overlooked players with NFL bona fides. Especially if you’re a new or young agent without an unlimited bank account, you need to know about these players. Well, now’s your chance. On Tuesday, Nov. 9, Blake will discuss his 50 sleepers for the ’22 draft . He’ll have players from all over the nation who play positions all over the field, and he’ll talk about their relative NFL chances (draft projection and strengths/weaknesses). This session will not be recorded, so be there or be square. It’s our second year of Blake pointing out the off-the-grid players, and last year among the non-hyped players he featured last year were Louisville WO Dez Fitzpatrick (4/109, Titans), North Texas WO Jaelon Darden (4/129, North Texas), Miami (OH) OT Tommy Doyle (5/161, Bills), Appalachian St. DC Shemar Jean-Charles (5/178, Packers), Boise State DC Avery Williams (5/183, Falcons) and many other players in the league today. Cost is $35 plus tax – not even a tank of gas these days – and we think it’s well worth it. We hope you can join us. If you have questions, let us know, and if the link doesn’t work, email us and we’ll send you a direct invoice.
Zooms all over: In addition to our sessions with Trevor and Blake, we’ll have more engagement with professionals in the industry intent on coaching up the next generation of football professionals. We’re working on not one, but two, New Agent Orientation sessions aimed at helping the NFLPA Class of 2021 get better fast. One session will feature ITL’s Neil Stratton who will talk about the costs of representation, how to work out training fees and other player expectations, and ways to stay on budget and make the best choices. The second session will include the executive directors of several all-star games, who will discuss the way each of their respective games work, best ways to pitch players, costs of their games, what to expect from game week and many other details. Dates are TBA on each session, but they’re coming in November. We’ll also have a session with a former scout aimed especially at aspiring NFL evaluators who will discuss the game, how to get a job in scouting, and the finer points of evaluation; date is TBA there, as well. For more details, visit this week’s blog post at Succeed in Football, in which we run down our complete Zoom slate for November. For each of these last three sessions (New Agent Orientation sessions and the scout session), there is no cost. You only need be an ITL client. Not part of the team yet? Here you go.
ITL Scouting Grid: We try to copiously follow the comings and goings of NFL scouts, especially in the post-draft period when most front office transition takes place. However, there are often a few moves we miss. This week, we updated our big board with 32 moves we’ve previously missed. Many of them were publicly announced, but missed by our team. Others weren’t, including:
-
The Cowboys added a couple of scouting interns (Michael Sroka and Shy Anderson), changed a few titles and jiggered the assignments of a handful of scouts (as NFL Network field producer Bobby Belt tweeted in September).
-
The Bucs released one scouting assistant (Carly Helfand) and hired a new one (Shannon Hogue).
-
The Cardinals elevated a couple of scouting assistants (Chad Jenkins and Andrew Caskin) and hired their replacements (Andrew Ford and Alex Valles).
-
The Chargers elevated one scouting assistant to combine scout (Kevin McGuire) and another to pro scout (Tim Tupa).
-
The Dolphins lost a personnel scout (Joyce Harrell) to Nike.
Make sure to review all the changes since the ’21 offseason started in our grid. In the meantime, we will continue panning for more changes as we continue our Know Your Scouts series.
Rep Rumblings: This week, we had three reports. On Monday, we looked at who’s in and who’s out as head coach of the Texas Tech Red Raiders and the representation choice made by the new interim coach, Sonny Cumbie. We also updated the NCAA Head Coach-Agent Board for 2021. We also had updates to the Chiefs’ and Cardinals’ scouting staffs for the Scouting Changes Grid and clarified the representation picture for one of the NFL’s best running backs. On Wednesday, we announced the five late additions to the 2021 agent class added last week to the NFLPA website, bringing the total of new agents to 182. We added a veteran agent who hung up her certification and discussed a couple of under-the-radar scouting moves by the Colts. On Thursday, in addition to updating the Scouting Changes Board with 32 new moves, we had a Shrine Bowl invitee and agent signing whispers. Want to check out all our reports going back to January? Click here.
WWE calling: It’s almost November. If your client hasn’t gotten any calls since April (or any at all), it’s probably time to start thinking long and hard about a new direction. However, that direction doesn’t have to lead out of athletics. World Wrestling Entertain-ment offers an exciting and vibrant career option for former NFL prospects, and you don’t have to be an offensive tackle to take advantage. In fact, there are opportunities for players of every shape and size. The XFL is still a year away and the CFL and NFL are off and running. Why not give the WWE Performance Center in Orlando a try? Hit us up and we’ll provide all the details to get you registered for the next all-expenses-paid training camp.
Next week: When November kicks off on Monday, we’ll be kicking off a rather expansive Zoom scheduled, as we chronicled earlier in the Wrap. The schedule kicks off with our NIL Workshop on Wednesday. It’s going to be unlike anything anyone is offering anywhere, and we think it will be a true game-changer if you’ve had questions about NIL and want to get on the field, so to speak. We hope you’ll join us, and you can register here. Also ahead this week (maybe): one of our two New Agent Orientation sessions that will take place between now and Thanksgiving. In non-Zoom news, we’ll look at the scouting lineups for the Giants, Jaguars, Jets, Lions and Packers in our Know Your Scouts series. Otherwise, we’ll monitor teams for below-the-radar scouting attrition to add to our Scouting Changes Grid; we’ll monitor the coaching changes for our NCAA Head Coach-Agent Grid; we’ll keep throwing the latest player endorsement deals into our NIL Grid; and anything else we see that might of interest to today’s football professional. We’ll also have our Succeed in Football blog, our Rep Rumblings; our YouTube page; our books; and, of course, our tweets at @InsidetheLeague. Come on, join us!
|
|
|
